K-91

The K-91 is a very good tier 9 USSR heavy tank. It combines many good stats and playstyles into one very nice and comfortable tank. It has a great autoloading gun with 3 shells, and the mobility of the tank is also quite impressive. It has a strong turret, but weak hull.

1. Armour
2. Gun
3. Mobility
4. Equipment, provisions, & consumables
5. Gameplay advice
6. Overall
7. Is it worth getting?
8. Most recently sold for:
9. Historical Note:

Armour

(The K-91 in the images is using Enhanced Armour)

Drag slider right -> to view 245mm AP
Drag slider <- left to view 300m HEAT

Armour when flat and facing head-on:
Upper plate 250-262mm
Armour behind tracks 300-320mm
Lower plate 170-175mm
Turret 300-320mm (weakest areas are 250-270mm, where the armour bends around the hatches)

Note: The reason 245mm does not see the upper plate or turret bulges as even slightly red is due to shell normalization of the AP shell. All tank reviews use base values, not normalized values, as normalized values would be inconsistent when changing shell types.

Also note that the tank in the right image is angled, so its armour values on the hull are actually:
Upper plate 262-282mm
Lower plate 182-194mm
Hull side armour behind tracks 240mm (auto-ricochet)
Hull side armour above tracks 380mm (auto-ricochet).

VS tier 8:
Tier 8 tanks will be the enemies to most often bounce off your upper plate. However, the upper plate is such a small part of the frontal profile that most enemies will be able to just easily aim for the lower plate instead.

Tier 8 MT, LT, and HT will find it impossible to penetrate K-91’s turret (Unless they are a T34 or M6 EXP with 297 APCR penetration). Some TDs may go through as they have higher premium penetration (300-340mm), but the turret will still be very strong.

VS tier 9:
Most tier 9 tanks will have no problem to penetrate the upper plate of the K-91 when un-angled. When its angled then the upper plate becomes quite strong, however, again, its quite a small area compared to the larger lower plate, which is extremely easy to hit.

The turret armour will stand up to  a lot of premium ammunition that you face in tier 9, as there are many varying angles on the turret which make it quite troll to enemies if they miss the weakpoints. To penetrate the turret reliably, enemies will need at least 290mm penetration on flat ground, or 320mm when using gun depression.

VS tier 10:
Tier 10 tanks will all easily penetrate the upper plate. Same as above, if its angled then enemies will bounce off, but that only in the cases where they can’t shoot the lower plate.

The turret is still very strong, and most non-TD enemies will still be required to shoot premium ammunition to penetrate.

Most tier 10 tank’s premium ammunition is enough to penetrate those turret hatch bulges, so don’t rely on bounces. Enemies may bounce off if you use gun depression, but also if their shot misses and hits one of the various odd angles on the turret.

Sidescraping:
The K-91 has 100mm of side armour, and its flat, so the K-91 can sidescrape well. However it can’t over-angle (going past the 70 degree auto-ricochet point).
The drive wheel is not extremely weak due to the armour that’s behind it (above the tracks) being angled inwards, though its still best to try and not expose this area.

Gun

The K-91 mounts a 100mm autoloading gun

-Alpha damage is 350 on AP, 300 on HEAT, and 420 on HE
-It carries 3 shells in the clip, with a 3.53s intra-clip reload, so the gun can burst out 1,050 damage in just under 7.1s
-It has a 16s magazine reload, giving it 2737 DPM
-Penetration on AP is 248mm, HEAT is 310mm, and HE is 50mm.
-Aim time is 3.7s/4.0s
-Dispersion is 0.319/0.287
–Gun handling is 0.2/0.2/0.1, or 0.17/0.17/0.09 with Vertical Stabilizer.
-Gun depression is -7 degrees, a very good number for a USSR tank.

Overall the K-91 has a great gun, it has great accuracy, its DPM is high with good alpha, penetration is good, and gun depression is very comfortable. The gun handling is just average and the aim time is not great, however these are still both fairly decent and usable.
The burst damage of the K-91 is quite high and its reload is quick, allowing it to have high DPM; however its intra-clip reload is quite slow.

Mobility

-Top speed is great, with 40km/h forwards, and -15km/h in reverse
-Traverse speed is 39.5 deg/s on hard terrain, and 32.2 deg/s on medium terrain.
-In game acceleration rate is shown as 15.6 hp/t, it has decently strong 959 horsepower engine for its 61 ton weight.
-Actual acceleration rate is 14.2 hp/t on hard terrain, and 11.6 hp/t on medium terrain.
–Terrain resistances are decent, having 1.1/1.4/1.8

K-91 has great mobility. While it may not be quite as fast as an IS-8, its sill a fairly quick and agile heavy. On hard terrain its mobility is extremely impressive, and on medium terrain the K-91 is still a very mobile heavy.

Equipment, provisions, & consumables

K-91 has no special consumables or provisions.

Calibrated Shells:
Improved ventilation can work well on the K-91, as its penetration is not lacking. However, since it does not need to sacrifice much in terms of other stats, using calibrated shells is definitely recommended, as you may face some tanks which 310mm HEAT penetration is not enough to deal with.

Calibrated shells will improve the penetration of this tank on AP from 248mm to 260mm, HEAT from 310mm to 341mm, and HE from 50mm to 55mm.

Improved Assembly/Enhanced Armour:
The main benefit of using enhanced armour will be to make the turret stronger, as the upper plate is quite small, and the lower plate is too weak to enhance. Using it would add roughly 10.5mm of armour to the weakest points of the turret, which will be useful for getting more bounces from 280-310mm premium rounds.

Note the image below against 300mm HEAT penetration:
-Turret hatch bulge areas are stronger
-Upper plate is more red
(The angle is slightly different due to these screenshots coming from separate replays, however the difference is still noticeable, especially on the turret).

Improved assembly does also work well, as the K-91’s armour will still work well even if not using enhanced armour. Improved assembly would increase the tank’s HP from 2050 up to 2173.

Vertical Stabilizer:
The K-91 already has good accuracy, its an active heavy tank and constantly moving in battle, and its also an autoloader, so it needs to have improved dispersion-after-shot. Using the vertical stabilizer would benefit all of these, as it makes the tank far more consistent during and after movement, and also when having to fire multiple shots in quick succession.

Gameplay advice

The K-91 is quite a strange blend of playstyles. You can use some hulldown gun depression plasytle, you can use some heavium tank playstyle, and you can use some of the high DPM low alpha heavy tank playsyle. All while being an autoloader.

K-91 does not really follow a defined playstyle that is well used among other heavies, as it can just use all of those above playstyles at once.

Sidescrape:
When in a city environment (such as New Bay or Himmelsdorf), or really at any time when its needed, this tank is able to use the sidescraping tactic. Its hull sides are flat and fairly strong, and it has a mid mounted turret on a long hull, it is well suited to this tactic.

Do be aware that you are not invulnerable when sidescraping. Tier 10 tanks (and some tier 9s) can use premium ammo to go through the bulges on the edges of the turret. Due to how wide the turret is, they see this area before your gun gets onto their tank. Though this is a weakness, its still better than just driving out sideways into the enemy.

Aim your shots, or don’t:
Generally do try to aim your shots in. The gun handling of the tank isn’t the best, and the aim time is quite unimpressive. If you give the tank just a bit of time to aim in, it will hit most shots, as its accuracy is good.

Due to this accuracy (and insane shell velocity), you can also sometimes just not aim, and shots will hit regardless. Try to avoid doing this, however if you are in a desparate situation, or a tank is about to get into cover, you can take your chances with not aiming, as the K-91 is decent with snapshots.

Use gun depression and go hulldown:
The K-91 is a gun depression tank. It should be looking for and using gun depression positions whenever possible. Its low profile, along with strong turret and good -7 gun depression means its actually able to use most gun depression positions quite well.

If there are no places to use gun depression, then go hulldown. The K-91 has a flat hull all along the tank (meaning its all one same height), and its one of the lowest profile heavy tank hulls. In fact, its so low profile that the driver doesn’t sit in the hull (though the Blitz K-91 is modelled incorrectly and has a driver in the hull).
This low profile hull means that the K-91 can very easily hide it behind any hard cover, and expose only the turret.

Sidescraping:
Note that the side armour is 2 different thicknesses.

The area above the tracks is 100mm, and this is strong and good for sidescraping with. The area behind the tracks is only 80mm thick, making it weak and easily penetrable when the front drive wheel is exposed (shown below).

Overall

Armour – 7/10
Gun – 8/10
Mobility – 7.5/10
Speed – 7.5/10

K-91 is overall a great tank.

Armour is good, strong turret, can sidescrape/angle, strong in hulldown & gun depression. Very good HE protection, but weak hull front, and not hard to HESH.
Gun has amazing DPM, good accuracy & gun depression, decent aim time & alpha damage; but mediocre gun handling & intra-clip reload.
Mobility is good, a strong engine with good acceleration rate and traverse speed. Reverse speed is average.
Speed is good at 40km/h.

The K-91 really has a bit of everything in its stats, its very unique, and it combines many styles of gameplay together. Its something that really no other tank in the game can achieve quite like this.

Is it worth getting?

The K-91 is definitely worth getting, as it has such unique features while at the same time having such comfortable gameplay. Its really a tank that can do everything, sidescrape, gun depression, autoloader, heavium, high DPM. Its armour is also fairly decent on the turret, and alright on the  hull if its angled.

The only things you may dislike about the K-91 are its large and weak lower plate on flat ground, and its aim time. Other than that the tank really doesn’t have anything to dislike.

The K-91 is worth 15,000 gold. Its often sold for cheaper than this though, and for that its definitely worth it.
The K-91 is a competitive vehicle, its also fun, and its also not too hard to play, it just ticks all the boxes for a great tank.

Note that the K-91 is an enriched reward tank with the premium status in game. It has a 140% credit coefficient, it is not a premium tank.

Most recently sold for:

Blitzfair Auction – December 2022
£17.77 or 10,000 gold (Full bundle) – April 2023
10,000 gold (Starting price), 7,000 gold (Final price) in Auction – August 2023

Historical Note:

The K-91 was a real tank. Ironically, out of all the Wargaming tank-related games, WoT Blitz has by far the most realistic version of the K-91.

K-91 did not have any more specific name, as it was never produced. The name K-91-2 (used on pc and console for the mid turreted tank) are fake names.

There were 3 K-91 designs:
Middle turreted heavy tank:
Mounted a 100mm D-46Tgun (no autoloader). It had 200mm of upper plate and turret base thickness; 150mm on the lower plate, hull sides, and turret sides; and 75-100mm on the rear.

Rear turreted heavy tank:
Mounted a 100mm D-46T autoloading gun. The whole front of the tank was rounded in a tapered oval, with the very front being 260mm thick, and the rest being 200mm. The turret design was different from the middle turreted tank, but armour protection remained largely the same.

Rear cabin tank destroyer:
This also mounted the same 100mm D-46T gun. This tank was based on the hull of the middle mounted heavy tank, so it offers the same hull armour, with the same 200mm protection at the front of the cabin as well.

All 3 tanks had a few things in common, their very low profile hulls, driver being in the turret (or cabin), all mounting the same gun, having the same engine, and using similar suspension.

Inaccuracies:
While not immediately obvious, the K-91 is one of the most inaccurately modelled tanks in WoT Blitz.

-The upper plate is too well angled, it extends too far back on the hull, and its too thin (120mm).
-There should be no driver hatch, the driver was in the turret, not the hull. This hatch was a maintenence hatch for the transmission, the viewport on it and driver placement there is incorrect.
-The inwardly angled armour behind the large drivewheel is wrong. The hull actually extends outwards at an angle, and you can see this by looking at the way the armour plates are connected right above the tracks
-The hull side armour is incorrect, it should be 150mm instead of 100mm, but this is probably for balance purposes.
-The tank should have 9 smaller roadwheels, instead of the 7  fairly large ones it has currently.
-The turret bulges are incorrect, and the turret in general is just the wrong shape.
-The mid-turret K-91 had a regular gun, no autoloader.

Despite all this (most being just visuals), the K-91 in Blitz is the most accurate version of the turreted K-91s in any WG game.
The tech tree K-91 in PC uses a fully incorrect hull, and its a medium tank, and it does not have an autoloader (though, with such a fast reload you might argue that it does resemble one).
The K-91-2, or the mid-turreted K-91, is also a medium tank in pc, though it does have a more correct model than the Blitz one, as it was introduced to the game later than the one in Blitz.

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